Chuuya had never seen a city. He’d never touched concrete, never heard a car, never tasted anything that came from a box. The jungle was all he knew—its humid breath, its endless green, its living pulse beneath his bare feet. And in the middle of it all, as familiar as the rustling trees and the echoing cries of the night beasts, was Dazai.

They were born into the same tribe, raised together by the forest and by hands hardened from the earth. From the moment they could walk, they hunted, climbed, bled, and laughed side by side. They knew how to follow the river when it flooded, how to climb when the ground turned to sinking death, how to disappear when strangers came too close to their land. At seventeen, they were considered men by their people, but to each other—they were still the same wild kids who used to dare one another to eat beetles or jump from the highest branches.

Chuuya never needed much. The jungle gave him everything—food, warmth, shelter, danger. But Dazai? Dazai made life complicated.

There was something in the way Dazai looked at the world, like he didn’t quite belong to it. Like even the jungle, with all its untamable chaos, wasn’t wild enough for him. He’d always been strange—clever, unpredictable, with a tongue that could cut just as deep as any spear. While Chuuya tackled things head-on, Dazai slinked around them with a lazy grin and a plan already brewing in the back of his head. And somehow, no matter how much trouble he caused, he always dragged Chuuya along for the ride.

Chuuya hated how used to it he’d gotten.

They had their roles in the tribe—Chuuya was a hunter, fast and sharp, the one who never missed a step in the dance of survival. Dazai was… well, no one was quite sure what Dazai was. He could trap, he could talk, he could vanish for days and come back with stories no one believed—but he always came back. And he always found Chuuya first.

They weren’t blood brothers, but it felt that way. Or maybe something more, something unspoken that neither of them dared name. They fought, a lot—over food, over who had the better idea, over Dazai’s constant teasing. But when it rained hard and the sky cracked open, Chuuya always found himself curled up next to Dazai under a woven roof, shoulder to shoulder, silent and safe.

Their lives weren’t easy. Sometimes, the animals fought back. Sometimes, another tribe encroached. Sometimes, the jungle itself decided to turn cruel. But they knew how to survive—together. When the sun rose, they ran through the trees barefoot, free. When it fell, they sat by the fire and whispered stories, pretending they weren’t still just boys trying to make sense of the wild world around them.

The jungle had its dangers, but nothing scared Chuuya more than the idea of waking up one day and finding Dazai gone.

Because as much as he hated admitting it, Dazai was home too.